Previews

The King of Fighters 2006

Spiffy:

Great personality to the characters; promises lots of content.

Iffy:

Not really a game for casual fans; no online play.

SNK has been making fighting games for a long time, but it's only recently that they've taken their signature series into 3D. The King of Fighters 2006 is the sequel to the interesting but somewhat limp-wristed King of Fighters: Maximum Impact, with what seems to be a "just for the heck of it" name change passed down from the company's head office. Will 2006 make a bigger impact?

The fighting here has a very 2D feel, although it's not exactly the same as classic King of Fighters. There's a fairly heavy emphasis on set combo sequences activated by pushing certain strings of buttons, which adds a lot to the visual variety. The element of memorization also brings the game closer to what gamers typically expect from a 3D fighter. There's also sidestepping, juggling, and ground attacking to take advantage of that extra dimension. The pace feels extremely quick. Getting stuck in a corner can mean certain doom, and skilled players can put together some absolutely deadly combos.

Though it's not what you'd call an incredible-looking game, KOF 2006 has its strong areas. Stage backgrounds are fairly modest and not too memorable, but character animation and effects stand out in a big way. Past simply giving characters different attack animations, everything from walking style to crouching stance has been highly personalized. Another attribute worth pointing out -- and there's no classy way to say this -- is that female characters each have their own signature "bounce" depending on their body type and the clothing they're wearing.

So yes, the game designers were probably a bunch of perverts that had a specific purpose in mind when they put in a camera mode that lets you move and zoom around the fighters while the game is paused. But they gave their fighters -- male and female -- a lot of personality. It's the primary way the title lives up to its 2D legacy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the producer is an artist going by the name Falcoon (who before working for SNK was an internet artist famous for fan drawings of fighting game characters and random portraits of voluptuous women).

KOF 2006 has lost the simple online "matching service" from the Japanese release, which is too bad, but then again how many PS2 fighting games (or PS2 titles in general) really benefit from online play? The game seems to be focused on providing a single-player experience that will last players a good while even if they don't have a buddy or two to square off against on a regular basis. It's an interesting approach for a fighting game to take, but with the glory days of the arcade behind us and the audience for old school-type fighters shrinking as the years go by, it makes sense.